Campus Stories - Theory & Practice
Stanford launches new free online course on Beethoven
Composer Ludwig van Beethoven’s history, reception and evolution as an artist is the subject of a new Stanford Online course that is free and open to the public. The course, which launched in spring quarter, is designed for any level of musical literacy – from beginner to buff – with the aim of enhancing people’s understanding and…
Literature professor collaborates with students and artist on poetry project
When poet and Stanford Professor Amir Eshel saw a series of drawings in the studio of German artist Gerhard Richter, he had an experience many would describe as spiritual. Eshel was in Cologne, Germany to interview Richter for his forthcoming book Poetic Thinking Today (Stanford University Press, 2019). He wanted to learn more about the artist’s four-part…
Resisting tyranny with humor: Timely lessons from the 1500s
GREG WALKER is the Bliss Carnochan International Visitor and a professor of English literature at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He studies late medieval and early Tudor literature and drama. His numerous books include, most recently, Imagining Spectatorship: From the Mysteries to the Shakespearian Stage (Oxford, 2016), co-authored with John J. McGavin, and Textual Distortion: Essays and Studies (Brewer,…
New exhibition highlights Stanford’s connection to Pacific cultures
A Papua New Guinean mask, shell necklaces from Samoa and Hawaii, and a ceremonial club from New Zealand are among some of the antique pieces now on display in the new exhibition, Pacific Links: Currents of Material Connections, at the Stanford Archaeology Center. Video by Kurt Hickman Both undergraduate and graduate students installed and curated the materials for…
Gender-swapped play takes on the ‘men’s rights’ movement
It’s a summer day in Sonoma Valley’s Bohemian Grove, where the country’s most powerful men gather to cavort, perform mysterious rituals and cement their social and political power. This year, however, they have a different agenda: whether to bar women from comedy and from voting. This is the premise of Men’s Rites: An Alt-Comedy, which…
Stanford musicologist brings the 15th century to life
Audiences often trust that performers know the history of the music they present, but even for the most dedicated performers there are unanswered questions. How, for instance, were ensemble performances experienced during the Renaissance? Do we experience them similarly today? For Jesse Rodin, associate professor of music, questions like these are central. “We might not…
Reimagining an African gallery
Museums foster conversations between the work on display and its audience. To keep the conversation going, museums must change over time. Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center advanced the artistic conversation this spring when 12 undergraduates reimagined part of its African galleries in a class taught by Catherine Hale, the Phyllis Wattis Curator of the Arts of Africa and the Americas from 2014…
New Stanford exhibition highlights power of reinterpretation, consultation with Native American communities
In the late 1890s, the entrepreneur and former lieutenant governor of California, John R. Daggett, assembled an ethnographic collection of objects to illustrate the lives of Hupa, Karuk and Yurok communities in Northern California. Earlier he had served as commissioner for California’s pavilion at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where exhibits showcased material…
New home of the Stanford Department of Art & Art History is an adventure
“Wow” is an apt way to describe the student and community response to the new home of the Department of Art & Art History in Stanford’s arts district. The McMurtry Building was completed over the summer, opening for instruction and art-making on the first day of the fall term. Since then, students have explored 100,000…
Stanford’s newest building spotlights art and art history
On Oct. 6, Stanford Board of Trustees Chair Steven Denning formally accepted the McMurtry Building for theDepartment of Art & Art History. It is the first new building to open this academic year. The building dedication was one of several celebratory events on Tuesday. The McMurtry Building at Stanford University, the new home of the Department…
Stanford music scholar redefines the jazz and cabaret culture of 1920s Harlem
From 1926 to 1935, the Cotton Club was the hottest jazz hub in New York City’s vibrant Harlem neighborhood. Not only did the club launch the careers of Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Lena Horne, but it also attracted celebrity clientele like Jimmy Durante, Walter Winchell and even the Prince of Jordan. Owned and run…
Stanford Repertory Theater explores the ethics of science with Brecht’s Life of Galileo
German playwright Bertolt Brecht is considered to be one of the most influential figures in 20th-century theatre. Like so many of Brecht’s plays, the themes in Life of Galileo resonate decades after it was written. The story centers on the great Italian scientist and natural philosopher Galileo Galilei, during the period when the Roman Catholic…
Stanford literary scholar: White whales and the ‘Melville Effect’
As the author of syllabus staples like Billy Budd, Herman Melville has been a fixture of American letters over the past century. But this hasn’t always been the case. During his lifetime, readers knew Melville for his adventure stories like Typee and Omoo, but the works we know him for today –especially Moby-Dick – sold…
Five-year digitization and inventory project at Cantor nears the finish line
It has been picture day at Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center five days a week for five years. Thousands of objects have posed for the camera in order to be included in an online database. The massive digitization and inventory project serves multiple purposes: access for students, faculty and other scholars; a clear assessment of what…
Stanford Live expands its mission with 2015-16 season
“The Arts and Social Change” and “War: Return and Recovery” are the two key themes at the core of Stanford Live’s 2015-16 season. The program will offer a full spectrum of classical, contemporary and multimedia performances, as well as talks, panels and seminars that build on the intellectual depth and breadth of this past season’s…
Choices!
It’s May at Stanford and that of course means – an exciting smorgasbord of arts activities. Every weekend is packed with an abundance of arts options. Make some difficult choices – or attend them all! Here is just a sampling of what each weekend brings: May 1-3: Musical Happy Hour with Fleet Street and Chanticleer…
